Various means have been used in the prior art in attempts to solve the problem of low lethal effectiveness of anti-aircraft projectiles against fast moving enemy aircraft. Prior art anti-aircraft weapon designers tried to overcome this deficiency in weapon effectiveness by making improvements in the range finding equipment. To improve effectiveness recent weapon systems have utilized computer and radar technology coupled with projectiles having the capability of being armed and fuzed by radar signals while in flight or immediately prior to being fired. In some instances the low lethality problem has been attacked by prior art munitions devices sensitive to guidance by using laser or radar beams. These laser guided or radar guided warheads were generally of the unitary fragmenting or cluster fragmenting type.
One of the problems with these prior art devices, when used against fast moving targets, has been the short duration of time the impacting lethal fragment cloud remained in the target area. Another problem with some of these aforementioned prior art devices has been that the warhead fragment distribution was generally substantially in a single plane. This single plane distribution requires initiation of the warhead at a precise altitude in order to be effective. Another factor which reduced lethality was the small percentage of active fragments available to impact the target because of a substantially radial distribution of the fragments. Another problem with prior art fragmenting warheads has been the low specific mass of the fragments available for use against the target which resulted from the relatively large volume occupied by the high explosive. In addition, the past fragmenting warhead devices have been less effective than the present invention against targets because of the relatively small impacting energy available to the small chaff size fragment formed when the prior art devices exploded. And finally the rotational energy given to prior art munitions from the spin of the warhead was frequently dissipated by the fragment mass because of wind drag prior to impact in its travel toward the target.